Interview: Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder on Foreign Policy

Gerhard Schröder'Germany Can Only Lead Europe the Way Porcupines Mate'

In a SPIEGEL interview, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, 68, talks about how difficult it is for citizens to accept military deployments abroad, the country's leadership role and what justifies war.

Schröder: You could look at it that way, although I wouldn't use the term normal in this context. We have been a sovereign nation since reunification, and after a difficult learning process, we are also behaving accordingly.

SPIEGEL: How did your personal learning process go?

Schröder: When the Americans attacked Iraq in 1991 after Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, I was strictly against German involvement. Like the overwhelming majority of citizens, I was convinced that Germany, in light of its history in the last, bloody century, should not be involved in military campaigns.

SPIEGEL: Did you also have also personal reasons? Your father died in the war, and your generation experienced the immediate postwar period.

Schröder: It had less to do with my father, who I never met. There was simply a consensus in the old Federal Republic that Germany should never take part in another war, except to defend the country.

SPIEGEL: What made you change your mind?

Schröder: It was the realization that a sovereign country cannot hide behind its past in the long run. We were no longer divided, and we no longer had a special status. The international community expected that we do more than help out with money, as we had been doing for a long time.

SPIEGEL: Are you surprised by the speed with which this change in political convictions has taken place?

Schröder: Well, it didn't happen from one day to the next, but gradually. The Federal Constitutional Court reinforced this learning process with its rulings. It began with the decision on the deployment of AWACS aircraft over Bosnia and continued with other rulings. It was clear that the reference to German history was also no longer relevant from a legal standpoint.

SPIEGEL: One of your first foreign policy decisions as chancellor was to participate in the Kosovo war.

Schröder: At the time, the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) still distinguished between measures to preserve peace, which were considered good, and measures to create peace, which many rejected. It was obvious that as the governing party, we would not make any headway with this decision. What was happening before our eyes in the Balkans was the threat of genocide. My party had to acknowledge reality and act accordingly.

SPIEGEL: The Kosovo mission was approved by your coalition government, made up of the SPD and Greens. Was that necessary to achieve social consensus?

Schröder: It was helpful, at any rate. It was also thanks to (then Foreign Minister and Green Party leader) Joschka Fischer. The yes vote by the SPD and the Greens allowed us to face reality. It was really a social breakthrough.

SPIEGEL: But things changed a few years later. You forced your coalition to approve the Afghanistan mission with a vote of confidence.

Schröder: The United States was attacked on its own territory on Sept. 11, 2001, which meant that Article 5 of the NATO Treaty applied. There was also a unanimous resolution by the United Nations Security Council. Saying no at that point would have isolated us completely. It would have signified the opposite of normality. And I wanted to show that my coalition government could come up with its own majority for the decision.

SPIEGEL: Do you still think the mission is right?

Schröder: I think it's justified. I still think that today.

SPIEGEL: Why do you hesitate to say that it was also the right thing to do?

Schröder: The decision was not only justified at the time, but it was also the right thing to do. Afghanistan was a haven and a training ground for terrorists who had committed horrific attacks. That was why intervention was necessary. Today, more than 10 years later, we can decide that this mission can be terminated because we want to transfer responsibility to the Afghans. Decisions must always be seen in their historic context.

SPIEGEL: How do you see it today?

Schröder: It will take a long time, perhaps even decades, to evaluate whether the entire mission, lasting more than 10 years, was the right thing. One thing is clear, however. If Germany had made a different decision, we would have been isolated and would have truly jeopardized the German-American relationship.

Schröder: That was a different situation. We were not convinced that that war made sense. We were sure that there were no weapons of mass destruction, and we were concerned that the entire region would be destabilized in the long term. Besides, there was no NATO mission, nor was there any legitimization by the UN Security Council.

SPIEGEL: That didn't happen for Kosovo either.

Schröder: That's right. The Russians obstructed that, for historically understandable reasons. That was why the mission was not unproblematic from a legal standpoint. But we felt that it was necessary.

SPIEGEL: Your arguments are very unemotional. You cite treaty obligations and laws. Others used moral arguments to justify their positions at the time. Joschka Fischer even invoked Auschwitz in the Kosovo debate.

Schröder: I understand why he argued in that way because he was having great difficulties convincing his party to agree to our participation in the intervention. Nevertheless, I don't share that argument, because it calls the singularity of the Holocaust into question. But it is correct that there was a moral justification. There was forced expulsion and the threat of genocide in the middle of Europe.

SPIEGEL: You also mentioned girls' schools as one of the reasons for the Afghanistan mission. Do we need a moral component in Germany to justify war because reasons related to realpolitik aren't enough?

Schröder: Well, merely invoking the NATO Treaty would have been too abstract. We had to argue that the goal was to stop the activities of terrorists and oppressors. It isn't a bad thing for the German population to demand a moral explanation for a military intervention. I'm happy that the days are gone when Germans went to war with enthusiasm, as was the case in 1914.

SPIEGEL: But girls' schools weren't at all the issue in Afghanistan.

Schröder: And no one was claiming that that was the only reason. It was a matter of freeing people from the stranglehold of the inhuman Taliban regime, fighting terrorism and stabilizing the country. I visited two girls' schools at the time. I knew that those girls only stood a chance because of the international intervention. It moved me greatly. And it played a role in us sticking to our guns when things became difficult.

SPIEGEL: Many of those schools were later closed again. This highlights the problem with using a moral argument.

Schröder: The argument isn't invalidated by the fact that it isn't possible to achieve all goals.

SPIEGEL: Are politicians further along than citizens when it comes to the willingness to engage in military campaigns?

Schröder: Politicians don't make it easy for themselves, either. For me these were the most difficult decisions of my chancellorship. But there is a difference between what people feel and would like to see happen, and what has to happen. It's much easier to argue in favor of staying out of something that to say we're getting involved.

SPIEGEL: Was it because of this general mood within the public that you didn't refer to the Afghanistan mission as a war?

It is surprising why a news magazine publishes interviews with people, that have nothing to add, nothing new to tell.
Schröder's "postitions", that he took in this interview are as inspirational as the color of coal, [...]

It is surprising why a news magazine publishes interviews with people, that have nothing to add, nothing new to tell.
Schröder's "postitions", that he took in this interview are as inspirational as the color of coal, as refreshing as a lime from last year and as original as a hamburger from MCD.
He always reminded me of a blown up baloon: big, but empty, and plainly just to repeat himself in this interview, that is called the self confidence of a pipe piper.
Afganhistan ? - "In decades" we "maybe" will now if it was right to have the German military participate, sure very much a political main street insight, that could only come from an ex-chancelor, who does not want to be called up in his responsibility for the deaths of German soldiers on that soil.
Iraq, well he was right then, but we have not forgotten that his 'njet' was because of the majority of the German polpulation was adamently against this war-adventure of W and his bunch of war criminals and torture knights.
Schröder wanted to get re-elected - that was his real (ond true) reason to oppose the Iraq war participation...
A man of the caliber of Mr. Schröder should have never been elected to any public office - as a self-stilish, mostly arrogant person, without interest in solidarity on any level, he was able to abandone even the last social ideas of socialdemocratic policies. His Hartz IV policy chaos haunts millions in Germany to the day- why does the Spiegel give a voice to such millionaire ?

universalinfidel 04/02/2013

2. history will say about schröder:

the chancellor that did everything wrong!!!
1
he brought germany in the afghan war without telling the world that we cant stay there-nor the brutal russians could!
2
he destroyd the alliance of the western world by announcing [...]

the chancellor that did everything wrong!!!
1
he brought germany in the afghan war without telling the world that we cant stay there-nor the brutal russians could!
2
he destroyd the alliance of the western world by announcing germanys retreat from an iraqui war before it was declared!
3
he was highly responsible for overexpanding the EU with democratic unexperienced nations befor stabilising the EU institutions and mechanisms of desicions!
4
he was highly responsible for letting greece into the uro zone although it was well known that this will be a financial time bomb!
5
he is highly responsible for crowds in the EU-parlament wich push turkey into the EU. wich would cause 15 millions of turks plus 15 millions of turkish kurds into the european countries-another nationality of people whose democratic achievement is more then fragile.
why did you let that man beeing interviewed???

powermeerkat 04/02/2013

3. Hypocrisy

"majority of the German polpulation was adamently against this war-adventure "
Acc. to the most polls majority of Germans are against propping out phoney euro and would like to see a return to DM.
How come that [...]

"majority of the German polpulation was adamently against this war-adventure "
Acc. to the most polls majority of Germans are against propping out phoney euro and would like to see a return to DM.
How come that in that case nobody in Berlin listens?

Zbig 04/03/2013

4. Augustinus

(Kosovo)"That was why the mission was not unproblematic from a legal standpoint." But we felt that it was necessary."
Not unproblematic? This war was a war of aggression under the Charter of the United Nations [...]

(Kosovo)"That was why the mission was not unproblematic from a legal standpoint." But we felt that it was necessary."
Not unproblematic? This war was a war of aggression under the Charter of the United Nations (and the Nuremberg Principles) which allows only two exceptions with regard to the Prohibition on the Use of Force: individual or collective self-defence and the decision of the Security Council to use armed force iaw with aricles 41 and 42 of the Charter. Furthermore the German participation was a violation of the constitution.
"But we felt that it was necessary."
The last sentence of the Kosovo situation assessment by the Office for Intelligence of the German Federal Armed Forces as of March 23, 1999, one day before the beginning of the air campaign, reads: "There are still no tendencies for ethnic cleansing detectable". Still!
The Schröder-Fischer-Scharping-Gang was of course fully aware of the missing legality plus the missing legitimacy. When Pope Benedict visited the German Bundestag in 2011 in his speech he qoted Augustinus: "Take away the law - then the state is nothing more than a big robber band"